As the next Medicare annual open enrollment period approaches, millions of Medicare beneficiaries must decide whether to change their coverage options. AIR researchers found that many beneficiaries are overwhelmed by Medicare’s complexity and could benefit from one-on-one counseling to help them make better choices.

The age when citizens can collect full Social Security retirement benefits is rising as people stay in the workforce longer, slowly fraying the enrollment link between Social Security and Medicare and increasing confusion. This brief addresses the problems that result and suggests solutions.

Since January 1, 2014, consumers and small businesses have had access to new health insurance Marketplaces (or Exchanges). Consumers in every state and the District of Columbia are able to buy qualified health plans available through their state’s Marketplace. This report describes the results of AIR consumer website usability testing, which focused on how consumers navigate and understand key functions of the Marketplace websites in five states.

How can the Health Insurance Marketplaces improve consumers’ experiences when shopping for, selecting, and enrolling in affordable health plans during future open-enrollment periods? To help answer this question, AIR developed the Marketplace Survey Improvement Guide. The Guide provides seven evidence-based strategies that will help Marketplaces improve the consumer experience by giving consumers accurate and relevant information in a timely manner and helping consumers understand and use that information.

Under the 2010 Affordable Care Act, millions of Americans gained health coverage in 2014. Coverage is key to accessing affordable, high-quality care, but consumers who struggle to understand how health insurance works and how to estimate out-of-pocket costs are at risk of going without needed care even if they are covered. This brief outlines identifies what health insurance aspects pose the greatest problems for consumers, which groups need more assistance to enroll and use benefits, and what topics and skills consumer-counseling efforts should focus on.

Understanding health insurance is central to affording and accessing health care in the United States. Efforts to support consumers in making wise purchasing decisions and using health insurance to their advantage would benefit from the development of a valid and reliable measure to assess health insurance literacy. This article reports on the development of the Health Insurance Literacy Measure, a self-assessment measure of consumers' ability to select and use private health insurance.

This issue brief describes the findings from interviews with health insurance counselors and other stakeholders about problems consumers face in selecting and using health insurance. It also lays out a strategy to develop an important new tool: a measure of health insurance literacy.